A flicker of good news. The White House has come out against the Stop Online Piracy Act, recognising that it significantly threatens the freedoms of Americans (and indeed the rest of the world, but they haven’t heard about us yet). This means it’s temporarily shelved, while the discussion continues. Unfortunately, it’s sister act, PIPA, hasn’t gone anywhere. There is still much work to be done. Cheers, PC Gamer.

And frankly, I’m disgusted by the number of publishers who couldn’t be bothered to get back to us or Joystiq regarding their position.

As far as I can tell that response seems to incorporate both SOPA and PIPA. I’d be surprised if the latter goes through in its current state when you consider that.

I also liked this bit:

“The organizer of this petition and a random sample of the signers will be invited to a conference call to discuss this issue further with Administration officials and soon after that, we will host an online event to get more input and answer your questions. Details on that will follow in the coming days.”

This is how I think the US legislature works so apologies if I am incorrect but here goes:

The US legislature is split into two bodies, the Senate and the House of Representatives. In order create legislation to be signed by the President (at which point it becomes law) both bodies / houses have to approve of it. Legislation can be proposed in either of the two of the two houses but has to be voted on and approved by both before they go to the president. Before legislation is voted on it has to go through one or more committees made up of elected officials from that house and then if the committees approve of it they send the legislation to be debated by all the politicians in that house. After it is debated it is then voted on. Then it goes to the other house for the same process.

Sorry that is horrifically boring so I’ll now provide an example to make it clearer:

Example: A Senator proposes a piece of legislation called “Ice Cream is cool.” It goes through the appropriate committees, is debated on the Senate floor and passes a vote because the majority of the Senate agree Ice Cream is cool. It then goes on to the House of Representatives where it will have to go through the same process of committees, debate and voting..

What has this to do with PIPA and SOPA? Well if the Senate and House of Representatives coordinate and pass similar legislation at the same time then they can combine the two similar bills together and then just have a single vote in each house on this combined bill rather than having to put the bill from the other house through the extra scrutiny.

Example: At the same time as the “Ice Cream is Cool” legislation was moving through the Senate a Representative in the House of Representatives proposed a piece of legislation called “Ice Cream is great!” This legislation goes through the relative committees in the HoR, is debated on the floor of the HoR and passes a vote. Now instead of each bill having to go through the same process in the other house delegations from both houses meet and try and combine the two bills together, iron out differences and so on. They succeed and a combined bill called “Ice Cream is Cool Great” is presented to both houses to simply vote on. If it passes in both houses it can then be presented to the President to sign.

So in effect the same legislation is put through both houses at the same time so as to speed things up.

In this case SOPA is the legislation being presented in House of Representatives and PIPA is the legislation being presented in the Senate. SOPA is still in the committee stage but PIPA is moving to the debating stage. While the original plan of voting on one bill in each house and then combing is on shaky ground it is still possible for PIPA to debated and voted on in the Senate and then moved on to the House for the whole committee, debate, vote process.

Given SOPA was initially fast tracked in the house it is entirely possible PIPA, if it passes through the Senate, could be fast tracked in the HoR too.

Well, given the major part online fundraising played during Obama’s original presidential campaign, it would be pretty stupid of the White House not to fight this. That being said, such far-sightedness is in seriously short supply in the whole realm of politics.
That being said, what sometimes happens (in all presidencies) is that the White House vows to veto legislation. Then the bill with said legislation passes both House and Senate, attached to some must-pass legislation that the White House cannot possibly veto. (say, “emergency” funding for wars; tax cuts; etc.) The bill is signed.
So defeating the bill before there’s any chance for it to be signed is still very important.

Yeah. Ignoring ethics (because there is no point), this is one thing I see the White House standing by. Elections are in less than a year, so there is a good chance goldfish-memory will still remember getting screwed on this.

If it were this time last year: The “We disapprove, let’s shelve it” would be an empty gesture. But it might mean something now.

In the immortal words of Bobbi Fleckman, “Money talks, and bullshit walks”. Who has more money? If the choice is the RIAA, the MPAA, and the ESA, and their backing industries, or Amazon, Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, etc…, I know on whom Granny’s cancer treatment money is riding.

Jokes aside, yeah, great work John! Sad to see most companies are too scared to say anything. Let Google and Apple save the day, given that they will eat your business in the future anyway, you may let them to do the tough work.

I’d like to remind everyone of what Wulf explained (much more elegantly than myself) in another SOPA thread – both pieces of legislation are only marginally about stopping piracy. Their true purpose is to increase Big Content’s control of the market and industry as an attempt to preserve the outdated business models used by publishers. Piracy is a market force that will never be completely eradicated – it is a part of the internet and its culture. Publishers know this, and they know that SOPA and PIPA will be ineffective at stopping it. Nevertheless, piracy is an ideal scapegoat for the failure of Big Content to compete in a rapidly changing marketplace, because it will always exist. They have been using it as an excuse for their own failure to adapt since the invention of the cassette tape. The longer we allow them to continue using piracy as an excuse, the longer we will have to endure such thinly veiled attempts to control the market.

Funky Badger – I’m not sure what you’re connection is with piracy and wife beating but you’ve denounced RPS for their supposed “have you stopped beating your wife” tactics before. Stop trying to be clever and start saying something constructive, if you disagree with their stance or methods then say why and prepare to be challenged.